From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeremy Katz Subject: RE: Building domains as a lesser user (was Re: [Xen-devel] bootloaders for domain != 0) Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 08:20:53 -0500 Message-ID: <1107523253.7797.7.camel@bree.local.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: Sender: xen-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net Errors-To: xen-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: To: Ian Pratt Cc: xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 09:38 +0000, Ian Pratt wrote: > > On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 02:30 +0000, Ian Pratt wrote: > > Especially as you start thinking about things like modular fs's, etc, > > it's going to be much less clean of a solution and be a significant > > slowdown on your guest boot time. > > A few seconds slow down -- nothing compared to what a BIOS normally > adds. > > I don't see why the filesystems would particularly need to be modular, > though you might do so for convenience. Because if the kernel is _different_ than every other kernel being shipped by a distribution, then it's a major pain. It also ends up giving people a lot less flexibility (because if I were to do that, for example, it would only have ext[23] support leaving users of reiserfs/xfs/jfs/foofs out in the cold whereas with a modular solution, they can at least add the support for what they want). > > And then, it's yet another kernel to keep updated, etc. > > I don't see any reason to keep it up to date. Its running in a protected > environemnt and doesn't have any extra access that the kernel about to > be booted is going to get. Users don't tend to take that answer very well ;) The protected environment means you can have a little bit longer to fix it, but they have things like audit requirements, etc. And just because it's running in a protected environment doesn't mean it's bug-free. Or that it's going to be able to stand still as filesystem features are added, etc. This ends up being less of a concern with minimalistic implementations for reading filesystems like grub's and libext2fs. Jeremy ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl